As with all hobbies they become so much more than the sum of their parts and so photography has become for me. I’ve always enjoyed detailed work, having a personality that will automatically lean to the obsessive when learning something new, detailed work comes quite easily to me from learning CAD for drawing complex circuit boards, to more leisurely pursuits such as knitting or sewing, although tailoring hand sewn tiny stitches at 4.00 a.m. for a deadline could hardly be considered leisurely!  I think I just love the learning.

And so it has been with photography. Firstly learning what all the buttons do takes quite some time, and even now I know there are a few tools deep in the camera menu that I need to dust off and play with.  But putting the camera to one side for the moment, the greatest joy that photography has given to me is being able to look at the world in a new and most playful way.  It literally makes my imagination spin when I see things that I know just 6 years ago would probably have passed me by.

It often takes my breath away to see the changing  colour of light, that until a few years ago I hadn’t really noticed before. Photographers talk about the golden hour, and boy can it be golden, so I thought I would show you a couple of snaps taken moments apart, unedited in raw. Hobby sitting on a branch.

Moments later. Hobby sitting on a branch bathed in golden evening rays.

Spectacular isn’t it.

After this we have the blue hour, which can be just beautiful.

There are writers that will go into great detail about the whys and wherefores, I just wanted to share these images that illustrate the golden hour so beautifully.